In honor of Avatar hitting finishing it's 6th week at #1...Here are some reviews that echo my own feelings about the movie

Avatar is quickly on it's way to being the highest grossing movie of all time. This is deceptive because ticket prices are so much higher now than they were even 10 years ago. In actuality half the number of people have seen Avatar than saw Titanic. In adjusted dollars Star Wars is still way ahead of Avatar. So is Gone With the Wind, I believe.

Why rant on this you ask? Because I have to hear about it and see it all the time. It's EVERYWHERE, which means I get to vent my total bewilderment at the success of this film.

Here are some reviews which echo my own feelings about the movie (taken from Rotten Tomatoes):

- "Cameron’s signature achievement may have been to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the oldest of all Hollywood maxims: all the money in the world is no substitute for fresh ideas and a solid script."

- "...everything about the story, the setting, the dialog, and the parts that aren't purely visual is awful."

- "Avatar is overlong, dramatically two-dimensional, smug and simplistic."

- "Breaks technological ground with stunning visuals, but disappoints on story and characters - which still do matter."

- "Adjectives such as "beautiful" and "breathtaking" have been thrown at Avatar, and they're apt. But I'll throw in a third B: Boring."

- "... a largely humorless movie that plays like the sensitive white man-goes-native saga, Dances with Wolves in Outer Space."

- "It's impossible to fully consider James Cameron's long-in-the-making eco-opus Avatar without examining the film's technological wonders and storytelling blunders separately."

- "At times it's wince-inducingly weak, and no amount of lush visuals can disguise that. Nor can they disguise how second-hand everything feels."

- "There's just not enough here to make a complete and satisfying movie experience."

- "The technical wizardry is at the service of a recycled plot and a script rife with cardboard characters...and dialogue that sounds as though it had been lifted from the pages of a third-rate comic book."

BULLET POINTS: Unchartered 2 and God of War 3 - My first PS3 Post!

The only Playstation I've owned is the PS1. The most significant time I've spent on a PS3 is at Best Buy. I really haven't been all that impressed. I haven't disliked any of it, it's just that the 360 is more generally suited to my taste.
I have also had no genuine interest in the exclusives the Sony has had to offer for the PS3.

The other night I went over to my friend James and Mary's house. They have a PS3 (and a 360). I spent a little bit of time with Unchartered 2 and thought it wasn't a bad game but was so underwhelmed by the graphics that I actually forgot I was playing the sequel and, for a minute, thought I was playing the first game. James then asked me if I wanted to play the God Of War demo. I said sure.

(Here come the Bullet Points!)

* The graphics for Unchartered 2 - Meh.

* The graphics for God of War III - Outstanding.

The character design, environments and scale of GoW3 is phenomenal. Now, I haven't played the first two GoW's and my friend tells me that GoW2 and GoW33 aren't all that far apart similar in style and play. This is the first one for me and I still haven't gotten over it. For the very first time this console generation I have a little tugging in my tummy that wants me to get a PS3 so I can play GoW3 (will not happen due to finances).

On a side note:
Here's a comparison, from GamingBolt showing screens for Alan Wake (360) and Heavy Rain (PS3) both look good and they both look better than Unchartered 2:

Click Here for the Alan Wake and Heavy Rain Screenshot Comparison

I don't really care whether or not I'm playing a game with hyper realistic graphics (which it seems that neither game really does). Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, for my money is the best execution of photo realism I've seen in a game. I tend to enjoy stylized, artistic graphics like Bioshock, Arkham Asylum, Street Fighter IV, Fallout 3, and now(!) God of War 3. Hyper realism is also great for driving games. I think it's cool to see the attempts being made and to see the evolution of graphics playing out before us (I love this longer console cycle)but the particular style of graphics to me aren't as important as the care and expertise put into them. And, if Unchartered 2 is any indication, they still have a while to go before human characters start looking real.